The first readable and accurate translation of twenty of the most authoritative Hindu documents pertaining to ascetic ideals and the ascetic way of life, this text opens to students a major source for the study of the Hindu ascetical institutions and of the historical changes they underwent during a period of a thousand years or more. Beginning with an analysis of the historical context that gave rise to Indian ascetical institutions and ideologies, Patrick Olivelle moves on to elucidate the meaning of renunciation-the central institution of holiness in most Hindu traditions-and the function and significance of the various elements that constitute the rite of renunciation. The Samnyasa Upanisads will be an unparalleled source of information and insight for students of Hinduism and Indian asceticism, mysticism, and holiness.

In the early 11th century, the Kashmiri philosopher Abhinavagupta proposed panentheism-seeing the divine as both immanent in the world and at the same time as transcendent-as a way to reclaim the material world as something real, something solid. His theology understood the world itself, with its manifold inhabitants-from gods to humans to insects down to the merest rock-as part of the unfolding of a single conscious reality, Siva. This conscious singularity-the word "god" here does not quite do it justice-with its capacity to choose and will, pervades all through, top to bottom; as Abhinavagupta writes, "even down to a worm - when they do their own deeds, that which is to be done first stirs in the heart." His panentheism proposed an answer to a familiar conundrum, one we still grapple with today: Consciousness is so unlike matter. How does consciousness actually connect to the materiality of our world? To put this in more familar twenty-first-century terms, how does mind connect to body? These questions drive Loriliai Biernacki's The Matter of Wonder: Abhinavagupta's Panentheism and New Materialism. Biernacki draws on Abhinavagupta's thought-and particularly his yet-untranslated, philosophical magnum opus, the Isvara Pratyabhijna Vivrti Vimarsini-to think through contemporary issues such as the looming prospect of machine AI, ideas about information, and our ecological crises. She argues that Abhinavagupta's panentheism can help us understand our current world and can contribute to a New Materialist re-envisioning of the relationship that humans have with matter.

The Upanishads are among the source books of the Hindu faith, being the concluding portion of the Hindu scriptures, the Vedas, also the Vedanta. This selection of translations by Swami Nikhilananda contains the Svetasvatara, Prasna and Mandukya Upanishads together with a special contribution to Western understanding of these important books in the form of a noteworthy essay on Hindu Ethics. Translated from the Sanskrit with an Introduction embodying a study of Hindu Ethics, and with Notes and Explantions based on the Commentary of Sri Sankaracharya, the great Eighth-Century Philosopher and Saint of India. Contents Include: Svetasvatara Upanishad - Prasna Upanishad - Mandukya Upanishad

The earliest of the four Hindu religious scriptures known as the Vedas, and the first extensive composition to survive in any Indo-European language, "The Rig Veda" (c. 1200?900 bc) is a collection of more than 1,000 individual Sanskrit hymns. A work of intricate beauty, it provides unique insight into early Indian mythology and culture. Fraught with paradox, the hymns are meant ?to puzzle, to surprise, to trouble the mind, ? writes translator Wendy Doniger, who has selected 108 hymns for this volume. Chosen for their eloquence and wisdom, they focus on the enduring themes of creation, sacrifice, death, women, and the gods. Doniger's "The Rig Veda" provides a fascinating introduction to a timeless masterpiece of Hindu ritual and spirituality.

Once feared as the capricious and terrifying Rudra, Shiva is the greatest Vaishnava, among the demi Gods. This work states that he is firmly ensconced as the awe inspiring Mahadeva, supreme lord of the annihilation of the cosmic manifestation.

What role do pre-modern religious traditions play in the formation of modern secular identities? In Unforgetting Chaitanya, Varuni Bhatia examines late-nineteenth-century transformations of Vaishnavism-a vibrant and multifaceted religious tradition emanating from the Krishna devotee Chaitnaya (1486-1533)-in Bengal. Drawing on an extensive body of hitherto unexamined archival material, Bhatia finds that both Vaishnava modernizers and secular voices among the educated middle-class invoked Chaitanya, portraying him simultaneously as a local hero, a Hindu reformer, and as God almighty. She argues that these claims should be understood in relation to efforts to recover a "pure" Bengali culture and history at a time of rising anti-colonial sentiment. In the late nineteenth century, debates around questions of authenticity appeared prominently in the Bengali public sphere. These debates went on for years, even decades, causing unbridgeable rifts in personal friendships and tarnishing reputations of established scholars. Underlying them was the question of "true" Bengali Vaishnavism and its role in the long-term constitution of Bengali culture and society. Who was an authentic Vaishnava? Many authors excluded those groups and communities whose practices they found unacceptable according to their definition of Vaishnava authenticity. At stake in these discourses, argues Bhatia, was the nature and composition of an indigenously-derived modernity inscribed through what she calls the politics of authenticity. It allowed an influential section of Hindu Bengalis to excavate their own explicitly Hindu past in order to find a people's history, a religious reformer, a casteless Hindu sect, the richest examples of Bengali literature, and a sophisticated expression of monotheistic religion.

The Bhagavad Gita tells the story of how Arjuna, the great warrior, is seated in his chariot about to engage in battle, when he sees his own kinsmen and his revered teacher arrayed in battle against him, and feels that he cannot fight. It is then that Krishna, the Cosmic Lord, comes to counsel him. Arjuna represents the human soul seated in the chariot of the body and Krishna is the inner Spirit, the God within, who is there to consel him. Today we see humanity divided against itself and threatened with nuclear war and mutual destruction. No political means are adequate to deal with this problem, and many are driven to despair. It is then that the message of the Gita comes to teach us that it is only when we rise above human schemes and calculations and awake to the presence of the indwelling Spirit that we can hope to find the answer to our need.

Religious texts are not stable objects, passed down unchanged through generations. The way in which religious communities receive their scriptures changes over time and in different social contexts. This book considers religious reading through a study of the Pushtimarg, a Hindu community whose devotional practices and community identity have developed in close relationship with Varta Sahitya (Chronicle Literature), a genre of Hindi prose hagiography written during the 17th century. Through hagiographies that narrate the relationships between the deity Krishna and the Pushtimarg's early leaders and their disciples, these hagiographies provide community history, theology, vicarious epiphany, and models of devotion. While steeped in the social world of early-modern north India, these texts have continued to be immensely popular among generations of modern devotees, whose techniques of reading and exegesis allow them to maintain the narratives as primary guides for devotional living in Gujarat-the western state of India where the Pushtimarg thrives today. Combining ethnographic fieldwork with close readings of Hindi and Gujarati texts, the book examines how members of the community engage with the hagiographies through recitation and dialogue in temples and homes, through commentary and translation in print publications and on the Internet, and even through debates in courts of law. The book argues that these acts of "reading" inform and are informed by both intimate negotiations of the family and the self, and also by politically potent disputes over matters such as temple governance. By studying the texts themselves, as well as the social contexts of their reading, Religious Reading and Everyday Lives in Devotional Hinduism provides a distinct example of how changing class, regional, and gender identities continue to shape interpretations of a scriptural canon, and how, in turn, these interpretations influence ongoing projects of self and community fashioning.

Tantric traditions in both Buddhism and Hinduism are thriving throughout Asia and in Asian diasporic communities around the world, yet they have been largely ignored by Western scholars until now. This collection of original essays fills this gap by examining the ways in which Tantric Buddhist traditions have changed over time and distance as they have spread across cultural boundaries in Asia. The book is divided into three sections dedicated to South Asia, Central Asia, and East and Southeast Asia. The essays cover such topics as the changing ideal of masculinity in Buddhist literature, the controversy triggered by the transmission of the Indian Buddhist deity Heruka to Tibet in the 10th century, and the evolution of a Chinese Buddhist Tantric tradition in the form of the True Buddha School. The book as a whole addresses complex and contested categories in the field of religious studies, including the concept of syncretism and the various ways that the change and transformation of religious traditions can be described and articulated. The authors, leading scholars in Tantric studies, draw on a wide array of methodologies from the fields of history, anthropology, art history, and sociology. Tantric Traditions in Transmission and Translation is groundbreaking in its attempt to look past religious, linguistic, and cultural boundaries.

The skies darken for the exiles, who have taken refuge in forest hermitages. First one demon, then another, attempts to harm or corrupt them. When these efforts fail, an army of demons is sent, and then a bigger one, but each time Rama again defeats them. Finally Ravana, the supreme lord of the demons, decides to cripple Rama by capturing Sita; he traps her, and carries her off under heavy guard to the island fortress of Lanka. Rama is distraught by grief, and searches everywhere without success.

Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation

For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http: //www.claysanskritlibrary.org

Few books or writings are available on Mother Kali, the primordial Goddess and the Divine Mother of the Universe. Twenty-four powerful representations which attend Her remarkable personage and which are eternal portions of Her august form are discussed. Describing many of Her divine aspects and rendering them clear to the contemporary reader, demystifying perplexing issues and removing age-old fallacies while still maintaining the rich meaning and symbology of Her astounding Presence.

To many outside India, Hinduism is envisioned as the foundation of an ideal, all-embracing society. Yet this is far from the truth. Though historically the practice of Hinduism does promote the idea of an inclusive and tolerant way of life, in the past decade Hindu extremists have captured the religion and perverted it to their own ideological ends. In "The Hindu Case, "Indian journalist""Salil Tripathi meticulously documents how Hindu fundamentalists have succeeded in censoring and banning many cultural works, tampered with university teaching, and prevented academics from continuing in their jobs. In addition, Tripathi shows that these extremists are in the process of rewriting the ancient Hindu scriptures. This title in the Manifestos for the 21st Century Series, published in collaboration with the "Index on Censorship," the only international magazine dedicated to promoting and protecting free expression, focuses on the rights, tolerance, censorship, and dissent within India's complex society, and it is an essential read for those interested in the struggle between religious fundamentalism and free expression.""

This is the first of seven volumes of a translation of the Valmiki Ramayana, the great Sanskrit epic of the life of Rama, ideal man and incarnation of the great god Visnu. This renowned work of ancient India has profoundly affected the literature, art, religions, and cultures of countless millions of people in South and Southeast Asiaan influence that is perhaps unparalleled in the history of world literature. Balakanda, the opening portion of this first translation to be based on the critical edition (Oriental Institute, Baroda), is presented here in a compact volume without the section of notes that appears in the hardcover book.

Read the story of two worlds that converge: one of Hindu immigrants to America who want to preserve their traditions and pass them on to their children in a new and foreign land, and one of American spiritual seekers who find that the traditions of India fulfil their most deeply held aspirations. Learn about the theoretical approaches to Hinduism in America, the question of orientalism and 'the invention of Hinduism'. Read about: * how concepts like karma, rebirth, meditation and yoga have infiltrated and influenced the American consciousness * Hindu temples in the United States and Canada * how Hinduism has influenced vegetarianism * the emergence of an increasingly assertive socially and politically active American Hinduism. The book contains 30 images, chapter summaries, a glossary, study questions and suggestions for further reading.

The concluding volume of a critical English edition of the monumental Indian epic The seventh and final book of the monumental Ramayana of Valmiki, the Uttarakanda, brings the epic saga to a close with an account of the dramatic events of King Rama's millennia-long reign. It opens with a colorful history of the demonic race of the raksasas and the violent career of Rama's villainous foe Ravana, and later recounts Rama's grateful discharge of his allies in the great war at Lanka as well as his romantic reunion with his wife Sita. But dark clouds gather as Rama makes the agonizing decision to banish his beloved wife, now pregnant. As Rama continues as king, marvelous tales and events unfurl, illustrating the benefits of righteous rule and the perils that await monarchs who fail to address the needs of their subjects. The Uttarakanda has long served as a point of social and religious controversy largely for its accounts of the banishment of Sita, as well as of Rama's killing of a low-caste ascetic. This seventh volume in the critical edition and translation of the Valmiki Ramayana includes an extensive introduction and describes the complex reception history of the Uttarakanda, as well as exhaustive notes and a comprehensive bibliography.

World-renowned philosopher and spiritual teacher Ram Dass—author of the groundbreaking classic "Be Here Now"—presents the contemporary Western audience with a lively, accessible guide to the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita, the classic Hindu text that has been called the ultimate instruction manual for living a spiritual life.

Many of the great thinkers and poets in Christianity and Islam led lives marked by personal and religious struggle. Indeed, suffering and struggle are part of the human condition and constant themes in philosophy, sociology and psychology. In this thought-provoking book, acclaimed scholar Mona Siddiqui ponders how humankind finds meaning in life during an age of uncertainty. Here, she explores the theme of human struggle through the writings of iconic figures such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Muhammad Ghazali, Rainer Maria Rilke and Sayyid Qutb - people who searched for meaning in the face of adversity. Considering a wide range of thinkers and literary figures, her book explores how suffering and struggle force the faithful to stretch their imagination in order to bring about powerful and prophetic movements for change. The moral and aesthetic impulse of their writings will also stimulate inter-cultural and interdisciplinary conversations on the search for meaning in an age of uncertainty.